Army slow to adapt fly-by-wire controls for helicopters.

• Author: Jean, Grace V
• Position: Army Aviation

Fly-by-wire technology has long been credited for enabling military fighter jets to maneuver through the air. As the advanced computer controls continue to migrate into the commercial airliner and business jet fleets--and more importantly, come down in cost--the digital-only revolution is finally gaining some momentum in rotary-wing aircraft.

The Marine Corps in the coming years will replace the aging CH-53E Super Stallion with the next-generation CH-53K heavy lift helicopter--one of the first rotary-wing aircraft being bought by the Defense Department that will incorporate fly-by-wire into the cockpit. The technology displaces the pilot's mechanical linkages to the flight control surfaces with wires, which will allow a digital .signal to "drive" the helicopter.

The Army has yet to embrace fly-by-wire after two failed attempts to introduce it into its rotorcraft fleets--the first time on the RAH-66 Comanche, a light helicopter program that was canceled in 2004; the second time more recently on the UH-60M Black Hawk, the service's workhorse utility aircraft.

But officials in .January signaled that they would consider trying again.

The Army by year's end will complete a testing program of two Black Hawk helicopters equipped with fly-by-wire controls. At that point, officials will consider whether to upgrade the UH-60M with the system.

'Fly-by-wire technology is better," said Col. Neil Thurgood, project manager for utility helicopters. "We have 30 years of jet history that tells you that it's better," he told reporters at an Association of the United States Army conference in National Harbor, Md.

Analysts and aircraft developers say the technical challenges for integrating fly-by-wire aboard helicopters largely have been overcome. The remaining barriers are a matter of cost and corroborating claims of operational benefits.

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Newer military helicopters like the UH-60M have digital advanced flight control systems, which are often confused with fly-by-wire technology. Digital flight controls involve layering computer hardware and software over the aircraft's existing mechanical systems. Instead of the pilot directly moving the linkages--the control arms, push-pull tubes and the like--his stick-and-rudder inputs feed into electronics that communicate with those linkages to alter the corresponding control surfaces.

In a true fly-by-wire system, there are no mechanical linkages.

The Army several years ago was headed in that direction with the UH-60M upgrade program, which was leading Defense Department efforts to incorporate fly-by-wire technology onto helicopters. Officials tapped Sikorsky Corp., the manufacturer of the Black Hawk, to develop two fly-by-wire UH-60Ms. But instead of moving...